Monetary System: Currency vs. Money, & Hyperinflation

Understanding the difference between currency vs. money is fundamental to understanding economics. Currency must possess some attributes such as being portable, divisible, fungible, durable, a unit of account, and a medium of exchange. Over the millennia many different substances have been currency such as salt, sugar, spices, wheat, rice, copper, precious stones and gems, nails, cows, spears, axes, exotic bird feathers, beads, certain rocks, shells, lumber, stamps, candy etc. They have all come and gone for various reasons. The market always tends towards more efficient means of currency. This is reverse Gresham’s Law, which stipulates that in a Free Market good money will drive out bad currency. When people are free to choose which currency to transact in, the best and most efficient methods will always rise to the top.

What is natural currency vs. artificial currency? Artificial currency is that which is chosen by the State and mandated by edict and legislation. It is often entirely controlled and manipulated by the State regarding quantity, value, interest rates, borrowing, creation. This complete control of the currency supply is vital to have intimate access to the inner machinations of the market economy. In this way even some individuals and businesses who refuse to pay their tithes AKA taxes or who hide their currency from the State can forcefully have their value extracted via the hidden tax of inflation. This is the pernicious power the State maintains through having a monopoly on currency.

Natural currency is that which is chosen by free and peaceful people to interact in. It is chosen because it has been demonstrated to be of superior value as compared with currencies of the past. The value of currency is its ability to lubricate transactions and facilitate trade. When it no longer effectively serves this function it must and will be summarily abandoned and replaced with a better alternative.

Through this natural market selection of currencies over the millennia, gold and silver have risen to the top in consistently satisfying these criteria. Therefore it has rightfully attained the glorious status of money, which has the additional attribute of being a store of value over long periods of time. Gold and silver are the impenetrable shields used by wise investors to protect their wealth from being plundered by political predators and thieving nation States. This is why they are the enemy of the State. This is why pure gold and silver has always been reserved for the god kings and pharaohs of antiquity and the people have been given toilet paper trash fiat currency to trade in. When currency and money are profoundly understood by the people the violent Statist paradigm will have been largely defanged and disarmed. Do not be afraid of money. It’s power lies at the very kernel of civilization.

“Gold is the money of kings, silver is the money of gentlemen, barter is the money of peasants – but debt is the money of slaves.” – Norm Franz

Hyperinflation

Inflation is an increase in the currency supply over a given period of time, which ultimately has the effect of devaluing that currency. More units of currency chasing after the same amount of goods/services necessitate a rise in prices. It must do an accounting of all the extra currency created in order to achieve equilibrium once again. Hyperinflation is this same phenomenon occurring over a much shorter period of time. This produces severe devaluation of the currency along with rapid price increases. A feeling of hysteria is induced in the people then becomes a positive feedback loop. Nobody wants to save any currency because they know doing so will only lead to a loss wealth. Therefore they spend the currency as fast as they earn it. This spending frenzy along with the rapid hemorrhaging of currency creation from Central Banks and other institutions is what produces the characteristic skyrocketing prices as entrepreneurs frantically try to keep pace with the resultant hysteria. In such plummeting economies the people demand to get paid not once every two weeks or once a week but every day in a vain attempt to not lose any earned purchasing power. This is the climax of the Wealth Transfer, as wealth is swiftly transferred from the industrious middle class to the politically connected and ruling elite. It is a process that is as old and wicked as Statism itself.

Unfortunately for those ignorant of monetary history this is an inevitable fate full of chimerical grotesqueries. Disregarding the mistakes of our ancestors is the cause of so many ills of humanity. The sparse students of true history must suffer at the well-intentioned but nevertheless misguided hands of the vulgar masses who emotionally charge ahead at an ever accelerating speed towards the cliff to meet their doom. Let us break this vicious cycle of impoverishment. This is the result of placing our lives in the incompetent and thieving hands of political predators and bureaucratic parasites. This is the result of refusing to take personal responsibility for our actions. This is the result of allowing fear and hatred to guide our lives instead of love and acceptance. Take care what actions you take when seized by trepidation for they may prove to be your last. Think, it’s not illegal yet! Even if it was illegal I would still do it!

“By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.” – John Maynard Keynes

“A practitioner of Eastern Healing arts with degrees in Acupuncture and Chinese medicinal herbs, I have always questioned the status quo, a path which led me to peaceful anarchism. Through my journey, I have worn many hats, that of a classical pianist, avid chess player, philosopher, comedian, and now father of two little anarchists. My wife brands me as a Cultural Critic, but I am simply following my thirst for knowledge and passion for writing.”